On leaving school, at the age of fifteen, he was articled to Messrs. Middleton and Bailey, architects and surveyors, of Paradise Row, Lambeth. With them he remained six years. Both took a strong and affectionate interest in him, and from them he received all the professional training which he ever enjoyed. Their business was mainly that of surveying; he could have learnt little with them of the artistic element of architecture. But his time was not wasted; for he studied accurately and industriously the “business” of his profession. Lists of prices, calculations of dimensions, methods of measuring and valuation, crowd his note-book, side by side with studies from Chambers’ Architecture, and sketches of such details and ornaments as struck his own fancy. In the later part of his time much responsibility was thrown upon him, and responsibility he never refused. The fruit was seen in after life in his excellent habits of business, and his ability to prepare his own working drawings, make out his own specifications and estimates, and form a sound judgment of materials and work. This knowledge stood him in good stead; he never failed to impress its importance on young architects; and, though he would not for a moment have allowed it to take equal rank with artistic power, he regarded the frequent neglect of it, and the increasing tendency to separate it from the higher province of art, as a serious evil, both in theory and in practice. But he could not be satisfied with this semi-mechanical work. His name appears regularly in 1812, 1813, 1814, and 1815 in the architectural part of the catalogue of the Royal Academy. His first drawing, there exhibited when he was seventeen years old, still remains. It was a drawing of the interior of Westminster Hall, the building which (as has been well said) “was in after-days to give the key-note to his greatest work.” His other designs “For a Church,” “A Museum and Library,” “A Nobleman’s Mansion,” &c., have all perished. They had served their purpose, and were no doubt destroyed by himself, for he was always ruthless both in his criticism and his treatment of his early designs.